Description
Tub full of animal figurines but nowhere to play with them?
Little figurine legs unbalanced on textured, lumpy or springy mats?
Want to foster independent, imaginative play?
There’s a Habitat Mat for that.
Start up the tractor and saddle up the horse, imaginative farmyard play just got more beautiful! Featuring fenced paddocks, a pig pen, chicken coop, barns, riding arena, pond, crop field and more, our farm play mat is the perfect place for your budding farmer to till, harvest and rear to their heart’s content.
At 1.5m x 0.9m, the Farmer play mat is big enough for at least two little farmers to have plenty of room to play! Habitat Mats roll out completely flat and are comfortable without being too cushioned. This means figurines balance perfectly – even with little farmers moving about around them.
Made from neoprene, there’s a lot more to our Farmer mat than it’s good looks!
Habitat Mats:
- Are 100% machine washable
- Have a non-slip textured backing
- Unroll completely flat – first time, every time!
- Are soft and comfortable on carpet, hard floors and outside
- Are durable and can withstand outdoor and messy play
A felt, carpet, plastic or foam play mat just can’t boast the same features!
Here are some of the ways we Habitat Mat with the Farmer:
- Working the land from dawn til dusk!
- Olympic equestrian events (why does Mum’s horse always have to come last?)
- Re-enactments of our favourite books, including What the Ladybird Heard, Little Blue Truck and Charlotte’s Web
- Discussions about where our food comes from and ethical farming
- Unexpected dinosaur visits to the farm with… chaotic… outcomes
Our Farmer mat was lovingly illustrated in France by the wonderful Tatsiana Burgaud.
Habitat Mat
Behind the Habitat Mat brand is me: Lucy, a Melbourne mum of two beautiful, high-octane, inquisitive, grotty little boys.
We had a growing collection of animal figurines, but we didn’t really have anywhere to play with them. Some wouldn’t stand properly on our textured carpet play mat, nor our springy foam one, which was endlessly frustrating.
My boys wanted small-world set-ups for their animals, but I didn’t have the time nor all the fancy small world pieces and sensory bases to make them (there’s only so many times they were happy with green split peas in a tray that I tried to pass for a grassy field…)
Their imaginations needed a springboard, and I needed a break from playing the role of ‘mummy polar bear’ in the wildly boring game of “mummy polar bear has lost her cubs”. The sturdy little polar bears did balance on our carpet play mat, which was really the only thing going for that particular game…
The Explorer Mat was one of our first two designs. I wanted it to be washable because, well, kids. And I wanted it to be the most vibrant, inviting thing in our playroom to invite independent play because this mama needed a break. And I wanted it to show as many different landscapes as possible to support learning about all of our toy animal figurines and their natural habitats. A habitat mat… Needless to say, with a name as catchy as that, it would be rude not to go straight into business!
And so we did.
Enlisting the wonderful creativity of artist Tatsiana Burgaud, our first two Habitat Mats – the Explorer and the Farmer – came to life. In February 2024 we used Kickstarter to successfully finance our first bulk production, which arrived in June 2024.
And the result? Well, I’m continually amazed at the way my boys play with the Explorer Mat. The storytelling and learning that happens when they play is something else. And I can happily report that instances of tea drunk while hot has increased 10-fold!
But it’s not just my house where this is happening. Habitat Mats are now in play rooms across the country, inspiring little adventurers and boosting imaginative, independent play.
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